Ziklag R5.23 - “change, or die”

SOS, the Luhman Method, It’s all in your expectations.

SOS Discipline - Daily Proverb and Red Letter Reader

It’s all in your expectations. cf Pr. 29:23

To trust is to dare. cf Mt. 8:6

Appearance is the ally of deception. cf Sun Tzu 5.18

From Today’s Stack

Innocent as Doves

When I talk about getting “Smart,” I mean learning from the pioneer in analog thinking, Nicolaus Luhman, one of the most prolific men of the twentieth century. Sonke Ahrens did the world an enormous favor when he unearthed Luhman’s central methodology in the coined term Smart Noting. Ahrens conceived of the Luhman Method as a tool in the duty belt of serious students and scholars. But my hunch under his hint supposed in something even more. I believe Smart Noting is a gift of Almighty God, for such a time as this, to help you, right where you are, right now.

From the Archive

from Without Flesh

“change, or die”

It’s kind of like watching sailors on a boat far from shore. They notice signs of a storm approaching. But rather than batten down the hatches, they decide that now would be a good time to renovate the whole boat from the nave up. “Anchors? Who needs anchors? Hey you! Get over here and slice up that sail. It's a bit medieval, don't you think? And ropes? Ropes are sexist. Toss those overboard, quick, before someone sees them. Hop to it, ye scurvy dogs! We need to get moving now! We need to change what we’re doing…or die!”

But does the approaching storm warrant this? Will any change help, or would some changes be useful while others only make the situation worse? Are these questions even being asked?

In American Christianity, this “Change, or die” refrain has become its own form of creed. Within little more than a generation or two, it has accompanied the erosion of Christianity’s presence in society. In a brief time, nearly two millennia of conviction that historic Christianity is the last bastion of humanity's hope has been replaced. In its place sits the new assumption that we are about to face such a perfect storm of change that, unless the Church finds a way to join its maddening pace, Christianity is fully and rightly doomed.